


Eye of the Hurricane

by Michelle Christian (movies_michelle)



Category: White Collar
Genre: Comment Fic, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:52:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movies_michelle/pseuds/Michelle%20Christian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Comment fic for margeauxmay. "Kate had been dead six months and three days when she showed up on his doorstep at June's."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Hurricane

Kate had been dead six months and three days when she showed up on his doorstep at June's, just as they were all sitting down to breakfast.

She smiled at him, tentatively--and oh, how he remembered that look, so vulnerable and scared and so close to the look she used to give him, back when they could both feel Peter and the FBI closing in on them.

Neal could feel his knees buckle, distantly, could see himself about ready to collapse. He thought he might have said her name, but there was this roaring in his head. It was so loud, so distracting, like wind and fire and rain and metal falling everywhere. It sounded like someone shouting "NO!" so loud and so long it wasn't even a word anymore, just more noise, a part of the roar.

And under that--adding to the noise, not clarifying or dissipating it--was Kate laughing in a sunny park in Greece; Kate smiling at him from the rumpled sheets of their bed in Paris; Kate saying, "You almost done?" while looking over one bare shoulder at him as he drew her; Kate moaning his name as she clutched at him; Kate flirting with a museum guard in Florence while he snuck in another way; never knowing what she would say next, where she would land; Kate laughing at him for bringing home that empty bottle of expensive wine, but smiling at him while he filled it from the boxed wine they had on the counter; Kate whispering at him to hurry up before they snuck away from a house in the middle of the night, Renoir sketch tucked safely in their bag; Kate whispering "I love you" into the dark.

The questions in his head, none of which could have been heard over so much noise, went round and round in his head, too: How? Where have you been? Why didn't you tell me? Is it you? How can it be you?

Under that, there were even more sounds--Kate mocking the bottle when he kept it; Kate saying goodbye; Mozzie warning him that he kept hearing things about Kate, what had happened to her previous lovers; Kate getting impatient when he didn't want to move on from Auvers after he was finished with the Van Gogh he'd done; Kate suggesting they split up when the FBI seemed two steps behind him; Kate asking why he'd become so obsessed with that Fed chasing them; Kate saying goodbye over and over and over---

"Sweetie," Neal heard from the terrace, and it shook him, cutting through the roar like a foghorn through the haze. "Who's there?" Elizabeth asked, and he heard June laugh at something Mozzie just said to her.

"Yes, Neal," he heard from directly behind him, Peter not raising his voice, not going for his gun, not doing anything but leaving it up to Neal. "Who is it?"

Then there was a hand--strong, steady, dependable (what a horrible word, what a useless, boring, wonderful word, Neal thought absently), warm--resting in the center of his back. Not pushing. Not pulling. Just there.

And suddenly, the roar receded, the storm not dissipating, but flattening, here in this center. This boring, dependable center, always where he left it, always waiting. Chasing him when he needed it to.

"No one," Neal said, finding his voice as the sound receded. "It's nobody." And he closed the door.


End file.
